KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — The raucous roar at Kauffman Stadium swelled with every batter in the second inning and then got louder the rest of the night.

As bouncers rolled by infielders and bloops dropped in front of outfielders, it became clear this World Series was headed to a climactic Game 7 — just like the one 29 years ago when the Kansas City Royals won their only title.

Lorenzo Cain looped a two-run single — one of eight Royals to get hits in a seven-run second inning — and Eric Hosmer chopped a two-run double over shortstop as the Royals battered the San Francisco Giants 10-0 Tuesday night to tie the Series at three games apiece.

Pitching with the initials of late St. Louis outfielder Oscar Taveras on his cap, 23-year-old rookie Yordano Ventura allowed three hits over seven innings for his first Series win.

“Guys stepped up in a big way tonight,” Cain said.

Jeremy Guthrie starts Wednesday night for Kansas City and Tim Hudson for San Francisco in a rematch of Game 3, won by Kansas City 3-2. Hudson, 39, will become the oldest Game 7 starter in Series history.

Lurking is Madison Bumgarner, ready to pitch in relief after suffocating the Royals on a total of one run in winning Games 1 and 5.

“We’re confident,” the Royals’ Billy Butler said. “Jeremy, every time out, gives us a chance to win.”

Kansas City can be comfortable in this bit of history: Home teams have won nine straight Game 7s in the Series, including the Royals’ 11-0 rout of St. Louis in 1985, since Pittsburgh’s victory at Baltimore in 1979. And the Giants have lost all four of their World Series finales pushed to the limit.

“This club’s so resilient. They’re so tough. They’ll put this behind them,” San Francisco manager Bruce Bochy said. “You’ve come back against the odds, and you can do it again.”

Teams with the home-field advantage have won 23 of the last 28 titles, including five in a row. This Series has followed the exact pattern of the only other all-wild card matchup in 2002, when the Giants won the opener, fell behind 2-1, took a 3-2 lead and lost the last two games at Anaheim.

Ventura escaped his only trouble in the third, when he walked the bases loaded with one out and then got Buster Posey to ground a 97 mph fastball into a double play. Ventura threw fastballs on 81 of 100 pitches, reaching up to 100 mph, and worked around five walks. Royals manager Ned Yost was able to rest the hard-throwing back of his bullpen: Kelvin Herrera and Wade Davis enter Game 7 with two days off and closer Greg Holland with three.

“This keeps all our big guns fresh and ready to tomorrow,” Yost said.

In a Series marked by blowouts — the first in which five games were decided by five runs or more — Kansas City out-hit the Giants 15-6 Tuesday. All nine Royals had hits by the third inning, matching the mark set by Arizona against the Yankees in Game 6 in 2001.

Cain drove in three runs and was among six Royals with two hits each.

Mike Moustakas homered in the seventh against Hunter Strickland, ending a 36-inning homerless streak in the Series, the longest since 1945.

Peavy’s outing was the shortest for a Series starter since the Yankees’ David Wells got just three outs against the Marlins 11 years ago in Game 5, according to STATS.

Peavy was charged with five runs and six hits in 1 1-3 innings, leaving with a career Series record of 0-2 with a 9.58 ERA in three starts. His record at Kauffman Stadium is 1-7 with a 7.28 ERA.

San Francisco had scored 15 straight runs entering the night, but the Royals bludgeoned Peavy and Yusmeiro Petit in a 32-minute bottom of the second to take a 7-0 lead.

Singles by Alex Gordon and Salvador Perez put runners on the corners, and Moustakas grounded a double over the first-base bag, past Brandon Belt and down the right-field line for a 1-0 lead.

Peavy struck out Omar Infante and, in the night’s key play, Alcides Escobar hit a bouncer to Belt. With Peavy yelling “Home!” Belt checked Perez at third and then tried to out-race Escobar to first base rather than throw to second baseman Joe Panik, who already was at the base.

Escobar slid past Belt’s failed tag attempt and into first to reach on the infield hit, and Nori Aoki chased Peavy after 42 pitches with a single to left.

Petit, who had pitched 12 scoreless postseason innings coming in, allowed Cain’s blooped single to shallow right and advanced the runners with a wild pitch. Hosmer chopped a ball that hopped over shortstop Brandon Crawford for a double that made it 6-0 and scored on Butler’s double for a 7-0 lead.

Cain added an RBI double off Jean Machi in the third, and Escobar’s run-scoring double in the fifth made it 9-0.

HOME COOKING

Home teams are 23-3 in Games 6 and 7 combined since 1982. The last eight home teams that won Game 6 to even the Series also went on to win Game 7, and no road team has lost Game 6 and rebounded to win the title since the 1975 Cincinnati Reds at Boston’s Fenway Park

MOMENT OF SILENCE

There was a moment of silence before the game in honor of Taveras, the 22-year-old killed in an automobile accident Sunday in the Dominican Republic. Ventura, a fellow Dominican who knew him well, wrote “RIP O.T (hash)18” in silver marker on the left side of his cap.

UP NEXT

Giants: Hudson allowed three runs and four hits in 5 2-3 innings in Game 3.

Royals: Guthrie on Game 7: “My memories of a Game 7 probably go back to Jack Morris, `91,” he said. “I was 12 years old, so certainly could appreciate the effort that he gave and the magnitude of the game, to be able to pitch like he did and win the World Series.”

— Associated Press —

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — With every pitch, Madison Bumgarner etched his place among the World Series greats.

The long, tall lefty kept slinging away and put the San Francisco Giants just one win from yet another championship, throwing a four-hitter to beat the Kansas City Royals 5-0 Sunday night for a 3-2 Series edge.

Hardly menacing on the mound, Bumgarner was simply untouchable — again — as “MVP! MVP!” chants broke out in the late innings.

And by the time the 25-year-old from Hickory, North Carolina, closed out his second win in a week, he had evoked memories of Bob Gibson, Sandy Koufax, Curt Schilling and the top October aces of all time.

Joined them, and maybe even passed them.

Who else has gone 4-0 in four World Series starts with an 0.29 ERA? Throw in only 12 hits in 31 innings, along with 27 strikeouts, and that adds up to the very definition of Big-Game Pitcher.

“He’s so fun to watch. He’s always fun to watch,” teammate Brandon Crawford said. “In the postseason, you could look at him and he looks like he’s just pitching in the middle of June, like it’s no big deal. He takes the pressure off of everybody else. We just feed off of him.”

On this evening, he fanned eight without a walk and never was in trouble, becoming the first pitcher to toss a World Series shutout since Josh Beckett’s clinching gem for the Florida Marlins in 2003 at Yankee Stadium.

The Giants’ work isn’t done yet. To lock up their third crown in five years, they’ll need to win in Kansas City.

Jake Peavy gets the first chance to seal it for San Francisco when he starts Game 6 at Kauffman Stadium on Tuesday night against rookie Yordano Ventura.

If the Giants don’t win then, there was always this possibility: Bumgarner out of the bullpen in Game 7.

Hunter Pence once again was in the middle of things for the Giants. He singled off James Shields in the second and scored on a groundout by Crawford, who finished with three RBIs.

Later, the enigmatic Pence accidentally threw his bat past the mound while striking out, and seemed to apologize to Shields. Pence added another hit in a three-run eighth, making him 9-for-19 in the five games.

Postseason star Pablo Sandoval also singled twice. Juan Perez broke it open with a two-run double off the top of the center-field fence in the eighth off Wade Davis and scored on a single by Crawford.

Since trailing 4-1 in Game 4, the Giants have responded with 15 straight runs. San Francisco won that game, putting aside concern that Bumgarner should’ve been moved up to pitch on short rest.

Bumgarner won for the fourth time in this postseason, and this blanking bookended the four-hit shutout he threw at Pittsburgh in the NL wild-card game. Durable, he’s thrown 47⅔ innings this October, trailing just Schilling’s 48⅓⅓ in 2001 for the most in a single postseason.

Given an early lead, Bumgarner was in control. He surely didn’t need much of a cushion, and looked even better than he did in winning the opener in Kansas City.

And on the rare occasion when the 6-foot-5 Bumgarner made a mistake, failing to cover first base on a grounder to the right side, his defense bailed him out.

Toward the late innings, it appeared that only a lightning strike could rescue the Royals, perhaps a home run out of nowhere. Not happening — this was the third straight game without either team hitting a homer, the longest streak in the World Series since 1948 when the Boston Braves and Cleveland began with a three-game drought, STATS said.

Exactly why the man nicknamed MadBum is so dominant isn’t easily apparent. Royals cleanup man Eric Hosmer said before the game that Bumgarner’s “cross-body” delivery is tough to pick up.

Bumgarner definitely has an impressive whip, along with an imposing WHIP in the World Series. His walks-plus-hits ratio per inning is incredible.

Bumgarner certainly excels at keeping hitters swinging at shadows by changing speeds. Kansas City batters chased balls that bounced as well as high ones out of the strike zone.

After Salvador Perez led off the second with a single — he homered in Game 1 for the lone run off Bumgarner — the slow-walking lefty who never seems to be in a hurry made quick work of the Royals.

Bumgarner struck out the next three batters, all swinging. He was at his best against pesky Omar Infante on three pitches: a 76 mph curve, a fastball at 91 and a slider at 86.

About the only thing Bumgarner didn’t do was get a hit. He takes pride in his plate prowess and launched four home runs this season, including two grand slams. Bumgarner went 0-for-4, leaving him hitless in 22 postseason at-bats.

Yep, he’s still got some work to do.

UP NEXT

Royals: Ventura will become the fourth rookie to start twice in a Series since 2000, joining John Lackey, Justin Verlander and Michael Wacha.

Giants: Peavy started in the World Series last year for the champion Boston Red Sox. He took the loss last week in Game 2, and is 1-4 with a 7.05 ERA in eight career postseason starts.

STATS

Of the 41 previous instances the World Series was tied at 2 in the best-of-seven format, the Game 5 winner has won the title 27 times.

— Associated Press —